IPFS Is A Global, Versioned, Peer-to-Peer Filesystem

A very interesting new entry in the peer to peer sharing field. An alt-internet, it could conceivably connect every computing device on the planet from this point forward. In other words, old websites will never die. They’ll ALWAYS come back to haunt you.

The InterPlanetary File System (IPFS) is a peer-to-peer distributed file system that seeks to connect all computing de- vices with the same system of files. In some ways, IPFS is similar to the Web, but IPFS could be seen as a single BitTorrent swarm, exchanging objects within one Git repository. In other words, IPFS provides a high through- put content-addressed block storage model, with content- addressed hyper links. This forms a generalized Merkle DAG, a data structure upon which one can build versioned le systems, blockchains, and even a Permanent Web. IPFS combines a distributed hashtable, an incentivized block ex- change, and a self-certifying namespace. IPFS has no single point of failure, and nodes do not need to trust each other.

It combines good ideas from Git, BitTorrent, Kademlia, SFS, and the Web. It is like a single bittorrent swarm, exchanging git objects. IPFS provides an interface as simple as…